Interview with PDP Systems/Patriot Memory: Memory for the Masses from 1985 until Today. Page 5

Today we would like to offer you an interview with the CEO of PDP Systems/Patriot Memory. We have already reviewed the memory products from this company on our site multiple times, and today we got a great opportunity to ask some questions to the man who got this all started – Paul Jones.

X-bit labs:Do you currently invest more time and efforts from the development as well as production standpoint into DDR II, or DDR I is still the primary focus as the product bringing highest sales volume to the company?

Paul Jones: Our R&D and engineering is totally focused on DDR II. We are focused on getting DDR II latencies as low as possible, speeds as fast as possible. Our focus in engineering is on DDR II. Even though it is pretty premature, we are already talking to Intel about DDR III right now. We are working on the latest technology. When it comes to requirements, DDR I is still there. There is still a fair amount of demand on DDR I. The technology for DDR I from the fab level on down. We are not putting much more R&D on DDR I any more.

X-bit labs:Speaking about the overclocking-friendly solutions for enthusiasts. Does Patriot currently offer a wider choice of overclocker’s products in the DDR II space or still DDR I?

Paul Jones: Patriot has bigger variety of products than – I cannot say all companies – most companies out there. On DDR I overclocking, I do think we hit almost every single possibility. I know we came out with a 700MHz DDR I down to a 400MHz 2-2-2-5 latency. Because of the speed differentiation, I think DDR II has more choices, but I am not positive about that. In the longer term, DDR II will have many more choices, with the spec standpoint at 1066MHz. DDR I clocked at 400MHz, so there was really only a couple of choices for the enthusiasts for DDR I. On DDR II, the range is all the way from 400MHz to well over 1GHz in speed. There is going to be many choices for the enthusiasts in DDR II. When AMD comes enabled somewhere close towards the end of Q2, there is going to be a plethora of choices for DDR II.

X-bit labs:What are the signature features, the advantages of Patriot’s overclocker’s solutions? What are the major distinguishing traits of Patriot’s overclocker’s products?

Paul Jones: Of course, every module manufacturer wants to talk about its latencies and its speeds, and that is very easy to state. If you say your product can achieve CAS latencies of 4-4-4 or can run at speeds above 1GHz… I can tell you my marketing philosophy: we don’t talk about the products that we can not mass produce. There are companies out there that take the marketing stand saying I can produce a 1.1GHz part or a 1066MHz part. The reality is that the production makes only a few units a week or this product works in a specific application. If you do not put it into a specific application or environment, it will not work. I don’t want to say that you got to use it in this environment on Tuesday at 3PM and if you do not use it at that time it is not going to work. There is a lot of things that Patriot can say and can do, but quite frankly, we don’t if it is not going for the masses. We work with all the motherboard people, all the chipset and processor people to make sure our product works across the board not just in one or two applications. When we come out with a product, I don’t want to say ours is the fastest or lowest latency because I don’t think any motherboard manufacturer can claim that, but I would feel like we can mass market it better than most of the competition. I never want to say all, because quite honestly there may be some guys that at a point of time are better than Patriot, but on a consistent basis, I feel that we are very strong when it comes to mass production.